I went to get my exhaust leak fixed today as I was told it was nothing more than a blown collector gasket and it turns out that I have a hole in one of my headers.

I've done some thinking, and decided I will stick with my 302 for a while per cost reasons. So I would love to get some long tube headers if at all possible (ie if they are smog legal), but I don't think they are. My future plans for the engine certainly include junking the stock heads for either some GT-40's or some Edelbrock performer heads. However, I'm not sure of the Gt-40's are smog legal but the Edelbrocks are very pricey. So, I don't want to limit my choices for heads by choosing a header that is only compatible with certian heads, does anyone have any recommendations for headers? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

Maybe Beastie will chime in here. I think he has long tubes.

 

i dont think long tubes are smog legal iin CA, they wont pass the visual test.

 

I have JBL (or JDL?) headers on my '87, I should have gotten the black primer finish on them, because I wrapped them with heat tape..these headers fitted pretty well, but I didn't like the sound...your best bet would be the Flowmaster headers, they are not expensive, and you can get a good sound with the 50-state street legal model...Good Luck.

 

TF,
Since you live in the "lovely" golden state, I would check with the smog people what you can put on the truck. If they say long tubes are OK, I have the hooker competition headers. They are OK, but I didn't get the ceramic coated ones and will have to replace these in about 3-5 years.

 

Ford GT-40 "3-line" heads are smog-legal and do not require special headers. It's the GT-40P heads that need different headers.

 

I'm gonna do the GT-40 heads one of these days when I got a little more time n money. I already have ceramic coated BBK headers and love em, look real good to.

 

StrangeRanger,

Besides being lighter, are there any other performance advantages to the aluminum cylinder head as compared to the cast iron cylinder head? I know the Edelbrock aluminum heads are expensive, but I also know for sure that they are smog legal and that they work! Any ways, since both the Edelbrock and the GT-40 should accept any 5.0 header, I guess I won't worry about the heads just yet. I just gotta find the best smog legal headers out there now.

 

Aluminum dissipates heat better than iron. When you put aluminum heads on your engine, the water temp may go up because the heads are more efficient at pulling heat out. The oil temp will likely go down. Because they dissipate heat better, aluminum heads are much less likely to develop hot spots and much less prone to detonation. This means you can run some combination of lower octane fuel, more timing and higher compression with aluminum heads. Typically on a 5.0 Mustang running 94 octane, swapping to aluminum will allow 0.5 more compression and about 2° more initial timing. Trucks are way heavier, geared less efficiently and have a lot different camshaft, so you're likely to have different results.

Also, aluminum is easier to grind or machine than iron (but clogs up grinding rolls and stones quicker too) so porting jobs are faster and easier but take more grinding materials.

 

Thanks for the info.

Just out of curiosity, what is it about the JBA headers that makes them a couple hundred dollars more than the "typical" set of headers? On the Troyer Performance website, they claim a 16-19 hp gain with JBA headers. That sounds almost too good to be true as a typical set of shorty headers will yield a 7-10 hp gain. I will probably give them a call to see where they got their specs.